Share the love with Google Photos' new Favorites feature

Star some stunning snaps

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Google Photos makes it easy to share and search photos, back them up, and cast them to a big screen, but it's always been lacking a few features. One particular omission was the ability to flag up your favorite pictures and make them all easily accessible – until now.

Google has started rolling out a new Favorites feature that lets you add stars to the best snaps in your gallery. Marked photos will appear in a new Favorites folder on your phone automatically.

The Favorites option will appear beside the options menu when you view a picture. If you can't see it yet, don't worry – it'll be there soon.

AI on the way

You'll soon be able to 'Like' shared photos too. A little heart icon will appear on friends' shared pictures, which you can click to spread a little Instagram-style love. It's worth noting that these two features are separate; photos you Like won't be added to your Favorites folder unless you do it yourself.

That might not sound too groundbreaking, but there are more impressive features on the horizon. At the 2018 I/O conference, Google announced that it's also adding AI-powered picture enhancements to Photos, including the ability to make certain colors 'pop', and recolor old photos. Keep an eye out for these arriving on your Android phone very soon.

Google has also released a new software toolkit for app developers, enabling them to build apps that work directly with Photos. Early adopters include HP, Nixplay and Timehop, so we're expecting to see some impressive new apps in the coming months.